A Web Called Life

Like you I too have pondered long and hard about life. Why what happens, does happen? And where are we going and to what end?

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The easiest is to take a leaf out of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and say the answer to life is 42. That shows our understanding and level of contribution to what happens…wish it could suffice.

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Surah Ankabbut focusses on the web of life and how it engulfs us. Taking this further Surah Rahman talks about the inherent balance in the universe and our lives. The combination of the two is the belief that souls are interconnected in a web, as are places and events. We simply move on the surface of this web, maintaining some sort of universal balance. Events and actions cause this balance to shift, but it is our lot to live within that frame.

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It hits us in the face, when a random co-incidence occurs. Walking along a lonely path in a foreign land, you meet someone known decades previously. Out of 7 bn people, how could two people decades apart meet? The odds are so humungous that it is unfathomable. Some people meet an opposite gender person in a passerby event, come together due to maybe eye contact and then spend a blissful lifetime together. Does that not seem eerie?

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Paulo Coelho has written on these co-incidences and how the universe conspires to make things happen. How can people who have known each other long and have no spark, just blandness, suddenly come together; one feels circumstances push them together and lo and behold they make a blissful life of it. Others apparently fall in love and are together for decades, but somehow never are able to make things work.

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Such events happen with places and objects also. People happily settle in a place where they had no idea they would. The strange events which conspire to move them, leave them astonished. Same with jobs. I remember a strange case of an acquaintance eating food and a waste newpaper, used for absorbing oil from a paratha ( as used in our country), was actually a job advert. He applied and spent 30 years in that workplace. A whole lifetime was carved out, because he went to eat at that eatery. The eatery itself did not last those 30 years, but it did become an instrument in delivering one fulfilled life.

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We are caught in this web (mesh) together. Beyond the physical. There is a meta physical connection and these connected souls do gravitate together and no amount of worldly barriers will allow these connections to disconnect. It’s as if this was meant to be. Whether for good or bad is less relevant. It just happens.

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So what of those who struggle to connect? Whether as two humans, or in a community or organisation? Sometimes we call it chemistry or cultural fit. Again surely the web (mesh) works! Relationships are formed on connections and friction happens among the unconnected in this web. Many times they are opposites; attract in a fiery short spasm and then differences widen; others are totally uncomfortable right from the start. But this is fine! If everything was connected we would have a mighty cocktail which would be dysfunctional. To know what is connected we must have the contrast of the unconnected. Just as we know we are happy, because of the contrast of unhappiness.

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Therefore what is the lesson one can derive for this life? There are some who have allowed these connections to happen. If one lets instinct prevail and also live an intuitive life, there will always be myriads of these connections. However, the practice of intuition is not natural to many of us. We just have to inculcate it. In modern society we have become more insular and insecure, and we tend to suppress these instincts, unlike the old Red Indian or the desert Beduin.

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Finally, at the end just to register this thought with the reader. An effort to connect with others of our humanity, can lead to friendships and loyalties, passion in life and can be a great reward through the course of this one existence of ours.

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About sarfarazarI have been lucky! A long career with large scale organisations and some acclaim. Also, took time off to write, mentor and do some education and social development projects. I continue to mentor and help younger people in life. Inshallah, hope to write on various subjects in my blog.

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Very Thoughtful Sarfaraz. Connecting with you is awesome.
Just wondering, if you ever were engrossed in surroundings, where you felt completely disconnected. If so, what did you do, to overcome that situation ? , as I am sure, being a practicing professional, there are times, where, one gets dethroned out-rightly and has to start afresh. In such circumstances, it is very easy to fell prey to negative thoughts and actions, resulting in a never ending downward spiral.
The question is pertinent to the current situation in the country and how can a young professional like myself disconnect him/herself from the surroundings and focus on positive work, which can matter.

At least 3 times in my career i have been in situations where the envionment became decidedly difficult, due to the lack of cohesion and team work. In one case it was post merger of a large MNC, in another it was a case of a market boycott and uncontrollable elements. This happens in life. I learnt from my first experience and was less stressed by the next two. in the ultimate case, you always have an option to walk out and find another more suitable environment. Or you can stay and see it through. In two of the three cases aI stayed till the immediae situation had been resolved. Its really a case of looking at things in a detached fashion and then solutions become more apparent, if one gets stressed out then the battle is totally lost. So stay positive, hope that things will change and that better days are ahead. It almost always transpires that better days will arrive….eventually.

Well said Sarfaraz sb. I happened to hear you in one of forums and tried to connect your thoughts then and in this blog.

One thing is for sure and that is power of having faith in connectivity, as life is connected with death and so is the sense of understanding to results of our efforts, efforts in right direction with the right purpose…

I thought these very potent words from a famous book. Something very similar to what I said about a perchance meeting of the eye creating a lifetime of relationship.

“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“…The girl raised her eyes to see who was passing by the window, and that casual glance was the beginning of a cataclysm of love that still had not ended half a century later.”
― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera